This is interesting -) maybe i'm missing somethign. I see many pro's saying that Ahigh rainbow board textures are good to fire a cbet on. But drawy board have more combinations and therefore, it is better to check ie Td 8s 6s. However if a put a 7% range into pokershove and give myself 44. My equity on a Td 8s 6s is 49%. Where as if i change the T to an A ie A25 my equity is down at 22%. Which i always thought made sense. As more of their PFR hand range is going to connect with the A high board.

Just take that 7% range AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, AA-88. Even if i fired on that A25 board and folded out his KK below/KQ that would only be 58combos and 39 would hit it. With even more of the villian's PFR hand combos missing the drawy board. Obviously the tigher his PFR the worse it becomes to fire onto a A high board..so you'd think.

Well i'm lost with this one. Any ideas? where am i going wrong

I think it's about what your opponent(s) think you have. If you raise preflop, your opponent is likely to think you have Ax so you can represent that hand even if you don't have it. Obviously if you get reraised, you get out of the hand very fast.

I see your logic here, and have been having the same thoughts myself. I think it depends largely on the game you're playing. If you're in the micro's the clowns will come along with anything, so the c-bet is good and scary to them, though they still may call with air and pay you off. In the high limit and nosebleed arena the players will be taking the game and raises more seriously, so the c-bet again is good and scary. However I think when you find that middle ground, where players are rocking the level 1 and 2 thinking is when the value in that c-bet is diminished in precisely the way you have described.

You need to think about the likely flatting range for the villain's hand and what the villain likely thinks about your range as well. In other words, if he's a tight player who just calls behind your opening raise you can generally eliminate a lot of high card hands (he'll fold most them for fear of being dominated). Same applies if a tight player open limps and then calls a raise OOP (this is a smaller pp almost always).

So now when the flop comes A 9 4, unless the villain hit a set (7.5 to 1 against) he's very scared that the Ace hit your opening range (assuming you're a relatively tight opener as well) and is likely to fold to a cbet. So when you're thinking about cbetting think about your opponent's range and what your opponent thinks is your likely range and then make your decision on when / if to fire.

Also watch Kyle "Cottonseed" Hendon's cbetting video on Stox (it's a free one I believe). It's really good stuff.

yah, I think that is what i was after. The cbet is really about the villian's range rather than a specific board. So if a player limps and calls ur raise. Then a cbet on a T86 2tone board probably isn't the best idea. Funny 2day, i'm such a fish. I've been isolating alot of nitty FR players from the CO/button. Yet i wasn't taking into consideration their SB completion. Some guy with 14/2 stats, and i try to isolate with 88 as i thought he was limping in with some junk. Yet i looked at his HEM stats more closely and all his limping was done from the SB hah. Just an off poitn which amused me. Isolating a 6/2 player xD priceless. How many times have i done that in the last 10k

Thanks for the feedback.

I think the confusion here is what a c-bet actually is.

A c-bet is a raise without a hand you believe to be best. Its designed to make your opponent fold (so exploits fold equity).

It also acts as a probebet as a secondry role... it lets you know where you stand in the hand.. i.e. it gives you an idea of what your opponent might be on.

If a c-bet is raised then its an automatic fold unless you have a good draw and are getting sufficient oddes (either pot or implied)

By betting a draw heavy flop, you have less fold equity. This is because you are in a way ahead / way behind situation.

By betting you place chips at risk which will only be called by someone who has connected with the board. At that point you have little choice than to fold. You do not gain sufficient infomation as to where you are in the hand.

So you are putting money into a pot with a board you did not connect with, but its quite likely that others have hit some part of.

Its better to check in this situation and get a free card.. you may improve. If you dont its not a problem as you only have your initial raise in the pot so its fairly small and you have seen the turn for a very small percentage of your chip stack.

Stu,

I don't know if I agree with your definition of a c-bet. I was under the impression a c-bet is simply making a bet after having previously been the raiser in the preceding round, i.e. I'm the aggressor.

It is IMO not designed to make your opponent fold when you believe your hand is not best. If I have AA I raise and then follow with a bet. I still consider that to be defined as a c-bet and I rarely believe my hand is not good post flop when I hold AA. Say I raise with JJ pflop and hit a J on the flop. I will still many times bet the flop. I don't think my hand is second best as I bet out and I still define it as a c-bet. So I guess I don't agree that a c-bet is designed to make an opponent fold. I see a c-bet as being designed to get your opponent to make a mistake, to call with improper odds or a worse hand.

Alternately as you stated the c-bet helps you find where you are in the hand.

Dr Dick.

Yeah I can see where you are comming from and a c-bet is definately used to keep the agression by the initial pre-flop raiser.

However, where I see it differently to you is all of the examples you gave were what I would class as value bets. You are puttung money in the pot because you have a hand worth being paid for. It is most likely the best.

Most people say that you should c-bet between 60-70% of the time.

As you know the chances of hitting a flop are about 30%.. we are always told the villian will miss about 70% of the time... so we miss 70% too.

So a c-bet is made far more often than we actually hit.

Therefore a c-bet is normally a buff combined with a probe bet.,

The bluffing aspect is that it looks like a value bet.

If you were to play a theoretical 'honest' game of poker where you only bet when you had legitamate reasons to do so you would never c-bet.

You see in theory (without any deceptional purposes) a bet means that you have improved. When you hit a flop you bet and when you miss you check... you have not improved and so there is no need to bet. Your opponent may have checked to you .. so why dont people want a free card?

Obviously poker is quite decepive and so you also bet to drive out lesser hands and this is really the purpose of a c-bet. If you betwith AK and your opponent called with 99, and neither hit the flop, he is ahead. If the hand is checked down then he will win. But as you initiallly raised, he may fold if you show agression.. this is really a bluff (if you knew exactly what he held at this point) - but you wont or probably wont.. so you c-bet.. you are both probing and bulffing at the same time.

Now if you heald JJ and hit a J on the flop, your reason to bet changes.. here you wnt to build a pot appropriate to the size of the hand you have.. so you bet for value. Here you might actually check, feeling that the flop is unlikely to have hit you opponent and that he may fold to any bet. checking here is like a delayed value bet.. you are doing it inoreder to gain more bets on future streets.

If your opponent is generally more agressive then you wil most likely bet the flop hoping he calls.. but this is not a c-bet.. its not a continuation of the preflop bet.. this is done for value because your hand had improved and so the pot needs to be grown.

Thats my take on it anyway